How can I help my students build on what they have learned on Writing Foundations?
Transfer of Writing Skills & Knowledge
A good deal of literature suggests that student learning increases when faculty teach for transfer. While learning has been defined simply as the durability of knowledge or information stored in memory, transfer involves the application of knowledge or skills acquired in one context to new or different contexts. Teaching for transfer provides opportunities for learners to write their way into knowing and being by utilizing interlocking, rhetorical concepts and practices:
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Also, check out Ambiguous Writing Situations: How to Work Through Ambiguity When You're Assigned to Write Something created by ECU's Dr. Erin Frost.
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CRAFTing Effective Writing AssignmentsCRAFT is an acronym for the rhetorical concepts that should be kept in mind in order to create effective prompts. This tool helps to avoid ambiguity and provides writers with a language to talk about writing. Using CRAFT can help writers think intentionally about their thinking process and facilitate identify, explore, and employ a writer’s craft while providing writers with the necessary information to successfully complete the assignment. By inviting writers to be intentional about the craft of composition – both print and digital - writers can realize their potential in academic, political, and community contexts. To see an example of CRAFT in action, click here.
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Also, check out Crafting an Effective Ethos by ECU's Dr. Erin Frost. |
Responding to Student WritingResponding to and evaluating student writing can, at times, seem like an overwhelming task. Sometimes it is hard to know where to even start! To make this a less daunting task, it may be helpful to consider how productive revision can be encouraged and consider other ways of discussing revision with students.
Considering your hierarchy of concerns and your approach to providing feedback (both attached on the right) can also help to lighten your feedback load along with strategies like minimal marking. Also, teaching student-writers how to proofread and edit their own work and peer review other student's work are also valuable tools and learning experiences.
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Reflective WritingUniversity Writing Outcome #5 speaks to the important of students' abilities to assess and explain the major choices that they make in their writing. Students need to be able to identify the key decisions that they make in their writing process, explain why they made those decisions, and evaluate the results of those decisions. The ability to say "this is what I wrote, this is why I wrote it, and this is what I believe is the effect of my writing" will help students to adapt and adjust their writing when they are faced with new and unfamiliar writing situations. Activities to promote this ability can be integrated throughout a course and at various points in the writing process to help writers become more aware of their choices and the effects those choices may have on their writing and the readers of that writing.
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